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Friday, September 14, 2012

Sepia Saturday: Who's minding the store?

Sepia Saturday challenges
bloggers to share family history through old photographs.

This week’s Sepia Saturday prompt is a busy store. One of my earliest blog posts was about the
store owned by my great-grandfather Walter Davis. Since I had been blogging for less than a
month and only about a dozen people saw it the first time, it’s safe to assume that this “new and improved” version of that blog
post will be “new” to the Sepia Saturday gang and other readers.

I always knew that my great-grandfather Walter Beriah Sylvester Davis owned a grocery store
at the corner of Sixth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue in Shenandoah,
Virginia. Since summer visits to
my cousins in Shenandoah always included a pilgrimage to “the store” like some
religious shrine, it is no wonder that growing up I always thought it was THE
store. The ONLY store.

Plus, I had studied some
history. It was the
Depression. Weren’t people poor and
out of work?

The Davis Store as it looked in the 1920s-30s

So I was surprised to read in Shenandoah: A History of
Our Town and Its Peoplethat in the early 1900s
Shenandoah was experiencing an economic boom and businesses flourished. There were several hotels, lots of restaurants,
hat shops, clothing stores, bakeries, meat markets, bowling alley and skating
rink, dance halls, an opera house, furniture stores, jewelers, a business
school, bicycle shop, saloons, not to mention multiples of hardware stores and
general stores.

The Davis Store as it looked in the 1980s
from Shenandoah: A Historyof Our Town and Its People

In the 1920s-30s, Davis
Groceries was just one of many family-run stores with names like Propes,
Sullivan, Emerson, Foltz, Booton, and Morris. ﻿﻿﻿No matter which store
shoppers went to, they probably all looked much like the Davis store: shelves with neatly displayed canned goods,
sacks of grain, boxes of cigars, and a coke machine dotted around a central
wood or coal burning stove.

But a shopper could also count on Mr. Davis for
other items like thread (05¢), oil (18¢), chicken feed, and cigarettes (15¢).

This scale from the
store must’ve been used for weighing fresh fruits and vegetables, and bulk
items like coffee and sugar.

Even though Shenandoah
was a boom town, shopping for everyday items wasn’t easy for everyone. Among the memorabilia that my family preserved
for 80 years is a small stack of receipts paper-clipped together. Dated from 1924-28, the receipts are all from
one family. They bought on credit
and paid down a little here and there with cash. Occasionally the bill was paid by hauling goods.

Some people left diamond
rings at the store in exchange for goods. Sadly, the owners never came back for them. After my grandmother died, my mother had a
ring made from the mismatched stones.

When I wear this ring, I
wonder whose worried hands reluctantly pawned a prized possession as barter for
food at my great-grandfather's store.

You might want to head over to Sepia Saturday to see what
the other bloggers have in store.

42 comments:

This week's prompt was made for you! How fascinating to have such wonderful memorabilia and I share your wonder about the owners of the original jewels in that ring. Some sad stories which will never know I'm sure.

I like this stove in the middle of the shop (2nd picture). Must have been one of the first "central" heatings. And is that a real boy in the foreground left? Or one of those advertising displays made of carton? He looks very real.I think it is significant that people owning diamond rings felt compelled to pawn them. Here they would call that "silent poverty". But it is very nice that you still have all these shop memorabilia. They tell a story to be remembered! Thank you.

It's great to have such a personal touch to our shopping experience this week and to see items like the accounts book and scales. I have vague memories of us having a running bill at the local grocers during the war, paid of partly by rabbits caught by our dogs.

Wow, Wendy. You have so much stuff from the store! How neat that you have the book about Shenandoah and that it features it too. That little boy in the 3rd picture looks spooky! It was nice of your Grandpa to make sure that those folks didn't go hungry. And the ring is beautiful, though it is kind of sad that folks had to let go of such treasures.

Oh my they must have been very hungry. That is a stunning ring! I never even thought about my grandfather's store (but it was also a gas station attached) until I read your post. But I only have one large photo of the outside and the grounds. You have so much wonderful detailed things, this is truly a treasure! Thanks for sharing this all with us.

Great post!! Just love that scale. But the fact that some people traded their jewellery for food, basic necessities, sounds pretty desperate. Tough times, for many, too many... But your grandparents had a great store. Must have been a delight for kids to go there.:)~ HUGZ

Oh, that post was well worth a re-run. There is something quite fascinating about dusty old receipts - it is almost the very fact that, unlike photographs and other keepsakes, they were intended as things of the moment, which almost gives them a lasting fascination.

Think it's wonderful that your family has saved several special items related to your great-grandfather's store. I'd like to see the picture of the interior of the store enlarged - so many details to check out! Sad story about the jewelry, but think your mother had a great idea to have a special setting made with the diamonds. Nice post Wendy!

Great post. I love it that you have kept all those receipts and items from the store. They tell so many stories. The story about the ring is especially sad. Maybe they should have opened a pawn shop next door!Nancy

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About Me

My name is Wendy. About twenty years ago, I helped my mother research the Jolletts. Since retiring from teaching, I have expanded my research which I share here. When I’m not looking for my own family, I index for FamilySearch and the Greene County Historical Society.
Welcome to Jollett Etc. Please leave a comment to let me know you were here. If you have more information or believe we are related, EMAIL ME at wendymath at cox dot net